Parent Teacher Home Visits is celebrating 25 years of building trusting relationships between schools and families. To commemorate our Silver Anniversary, we will share the stories of close friends, partners, and allies who have helped make PTHV what it is today. Watch this space regularly to see more “impact stories.” In this post, we hear from a first-grade teacher from Connecticut.

I am a first-grade teacher at K.T. Murphy Elementary School in Stamford, CT. This is my fourth year teaching. I started Parent Teacher Home Visits last year when I was a fourth-grade teacher. I enjoyed it and saw great benefits from it. So I’ve continued on in my first-grade class now.

I started out as a distance learning teacher, and I saw an ad for a position at my current school that mentioned the visits. One of our goals at K.T. Murphy is parent-teacher engagement, and we were always looking to get families more involved in our school. It’s something I’m passionate about because I love looking at the whole student. I see so many benefits—not just in academics—but social, including family. I figured it would be a great way to pilot these ideas about family engagement.

At that time, everything was online as we were piloting Parent Teacher Home Visits during the 2020-2021 school year, so it was a little bit less intimidating than other teachers who start with in-person visits. We didn’t have the option to go into homes, so we instead did virtual visits over Zoom calls. I’ve now seen first-hand why it’s so important to engage with families and how it promotes learning in the classroom. Students feel so seen, and the families are so much more comfortable when you take a little bit of time to hear them out and get to know them. I saw tremendous communication gaps shrink.

I did all in-person visits the next year. We still met families outside for comfort due to COVID, but it was a great option for both me and the parents. It was beautiful because it was fall, and we have this nice courtyard area where we met parents. I quickly realized that although I had enjoyed online visits and saw tremendous benefits, with being in person, it is so much easier to relate and get along with people when you’re right there next to them. I will say that we were able to see more family members when we did Parent Teacher Home Visits online, and we also saw more of their families. Everyone was home at that point, eating dinner or whatever they were doing. I saw Mom, Dad, brothers, and sisters. When we started the in-person phase of our pilot, I mainly saw one parent, and one or two students if they had another sibling at the school.

I know other teachers worry about what to say and what not to say on a home visit, but I felt equipped by the training we had with PTHV. When the visits were online, I could pull up some guiding questions on another screen. So I felt comfortable from the start because I knew how to facilitate the conversations. However, with being in person, I was definitely not looking at the paper. It was more fluid. You just talk and go where the conversation leads. And I thought that was more natural. Both were learning experiences, and both had benefits.

With many home visits under my belt now, I’ve noticed each family had their own interpretation of the question about their hopes and dreams. Some took it as far as, “I hope my child goes to college and pursues a specific career.” The kids’ dreams were also wide-ranging, like, “I hope I do better in soccer this year and score a goal,” or “I want to become a doctor.” It was so interesting to hear how the families interpreted the question. I also heard parents say their hope and dream for that school year was to improve on math and academics and different areas. But what I remember more is their excitement over being able to share what their experiences were and what they wanted for their children, in school and throughout life.

I tend to compare Parent Teacher Home Visits to conferences. In conferences, it’s more of the teacher talking and explaining things, and with home visits it’s nice to be able to take the backseat and facilitate and hear from the parents rather than dominating the discussion. Parents want to share about their kids. It’s really helpful when we stop, pause, and listen.

When I talk about my hopes and dreams for each student, I kind of gauge it on what the family’s response was and try and tailor it to the student. Some of my hopes and dreams for specific students were wanting some to be more social, wanting them to branch out and see all their potential. I try to speak life and truth into the possibilities of who they can become with being open and honest and willing. I’ve shared what it looks like to step out of their comfort zone because some have needed that encouragement. And I’ve seen what that conversation looks like on a kid’s face, when both their parents and their teacher are sharing their excitement over them.

One memorable visit was with one particular student in my first-grade class this year. She just beamed at the fact that she, her mom, and I were together. The same thing happened with another student, and he couldn’t wait to come back in and say, “Miss Carlucci and my mom are friends.” I think home visits build students up and build a bridge between home and school. And being in agreement on what we see with the students’ future sets the tone for relationship. Sometimes, I try to steer away from academics because that’s the first thing that kids think of when they think of their teacher, and so I love it when the conversation is more about students’ social-emotional needs and their growth in that.

I’ve learned it’s easy to make assumptions going into anything. It’s easy to assume that parents don’t care because of their lack of response. However, what I found is, the more that you reach out, and the more that you show that you’re interested and that you’re open to hearing what they have to say, that that’s actually just not the case. There are so many different factors going into why school staff might be thinking that some parents don’t care. I’ve had so many experiences where parents have had a sick child. Parents have been working day and night. Many have barriers of language and the barrier of not knowing the school system. So Parent Teacher Home Visits has been a wonderful learning experience.

As teachers, we try to go above and beyond in not keeping everything confined to the classroom. I think that the best way to reach students academically is to first build the other 50 percent with relationship. It doesn’t even take a long time. Some teachers might think it seems overwhelming to have to schedule all these meetings, and why do it when we already have parent-teacher conferences? But it’s not like that at all. It’s very social; it’s very relaxed. And the benefits are just tremendous in the way that parents feel like they can reach out to you at any time. Or they can tell you things that are going on. And the student sees the connection with home as well and they see that you care more about them as a person than whether they can add. That translates to a willingness to try harder, to persevere. I’m seeing more of a willing to step out and take the risk of making mistakes. They are more open, and in class, I’m able to coach them along with things that happened in our visit.

During the season when Parent Teacher Home Visits are going on at the beginning of the year and the end of the year, it’s something I try to speak highly of in my school community. I let other teachers know they should look into doing home visits because naturally as teachers, we’re reaching out to families all the time. I say this is an intentional time when you get to hone in on the student and the family and hear from them. It doesn’t even take a lot of effort from the teacher. You’re kind of absorbing everything. I speak highly of PTHV and that comes from a place of loving it and benefiting from it and trying to get more people involved.